The Untitled Band Excuse
by Dragon of Faith AKA Jaylynn
Summary: This is a story I wrote for my English 10 class about band camp. It's really stupid, but I hope you like! RR!


The Untitled Band Excuse  
A week before, I packed. Maybe it was just because there was nothing else better to do, but I packed. My second year at Band Camp was supposed to be better than the last, and that was going to be pretty hard to beat. As soon as I stepped out of the car in front of the high school, I knew this year was going to be so much better than my freshman year.  
The moving van that handled our belongings, usually two or three bags and your instrument, to and from camp, stood in front of the middle school, blocking my vision of the bandies who stood behind it, loading their own luggage into the back. There was something in the air that suggested something magical was about to happen. And I knew it would.  
I grabbed my acoustic guitar and notebooks out of the back of my mother's car and asked her to go sign in for me, which we were supposed to do. I got my bags and took them to the van, put them in the pile, minus my guitar, and walked away. I waited for my mother. There was nothing I could do.  
Looking, I saw my fellow band mates, both former and freshmen. Of course last year's seniors weren't here, and I hated that. Most of those seniors were my best and only friends. They are gone, so I shouldn't dwell on the past, but I smiled at the thought that these new freshmen, no matter how stupid or insignificant they seemed now, would soon grow into seniors and be the mentors to their freshmen.  
Standing by the tree by the side of the yellow van, I waited for my mom to return. I saw two of my friends in front of the school with their parents; I waved but they didn't seem to see me. My mother was walking towards me with papers in her hand and her purse perched on her shoulder. I saw my two friends, Christina Voss and Christina, Aka Chrissy, Hodgeson, both freshmen, start to walk towards us. The week before, I had signed up to room with Christina Voss, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Voss, who worked at the high school. I knew this week was going to be total crap, just by that fact. But I had other friends. One of whom I had been friends with since I moved here, Sonoma Bryan.  
Christina wasn't, by far, my friend, but she had moved into Monticello Schools because both of her parents now worked there, and I knew what it was like to be the new kid. But knowing her now, I shouldn't have befriended her; you'll learn why later. Sonoma, I saw, a few minutes later on the veranda talking to her boyfriend, CJ.I'm not getting into that. I waved at her, and she waved back over his shoulder, but didn't walk over to us. About thirty minutes later, it was time to climb aboard one of the three buses going toward our destination: Bandalization Camp.  
Ten minutes had past and we were speeding down the highway to camp at EIU. I was sitting next to Sonoma on the first bus. She was explaining all the meanings behind the knick-knacks in her purse that she carried onto the bus. After she had terminated her feelings of the miniscule trinkets, I moved into the empty seat next to me, and started playing some chords on my guitar and just tried to ignore everyone else around me.  
At a subsequent period, around forty-five minutes later, the bus began to slow down. Thinking we were close, I began gathering up my notebooks and guitar. The smell of burning rubber, plastic and metal wafted through the bus like a spirit. I looked out the window. A '94 Nissan and a '98 Dodge Ram had 'ram'med into eachother on the opposite side of the highway, and the Nissan was engulfed in flames. Ambulances and fire trucks were speckled along the highway, backing up traffic for the next 6-½ miles.  
As soon as we passed, we came into downtown EIU college town. Then, after going past hundreds of shops, libraries and apartment houses, we made it to Thomas Hall, where we were staying. A few minutes later, we were parked. Since Sonoma and I were only three seats back from the front, we were first to get off.  
We walked in the doors and the memories came flooding back to me of my first year here. Nothing had changed, or at least not much. Except for one thing: the guy that I liked for a year and a half was in band last year, but not this year (I'm not disclosing names.just in case.you know) and I was heartbroken. But to tell the truth, why should I care if he was in band this year or not? There were more instruments in the sea.  
We checked in, got our keys, and meal cards, while Christina overreacted the whole time. Wondering whether we should get out bags first or look at our rooms or if we ate first or last. I tried to calm her down, but nobody listens to insignificant little me. So I just did what comes naturally.I just ignored her and went out and got my bags. Of course she followed me like a shepherd and his sheep, and it bothered me. This girl is going to have serious problems when she's older. But I just kept walking.  
Around five o'clock we (the band, guard and drumline) had dinner in the cafeteria that was right next door. The good thing was that we didn't have to pay. Like I said before, we had meal cards and it was taken from the money we had put on those. At the expense of boring you, I won't include the details of the card or the cafeteria.I think you can use your imagination. IT'S A CAFETERIA!  
Anyway, there was one other good thing about band camp.the hot guys from other schools. (Hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.) After dinner was over, about six, we had an hour to unpack our things and decorate our rooms. Since I totally forgot the Christmas lights I'd intended to bring from home, all I did was the unpacking part. How pleasant.  
We were two people to a room. There were two desks, two lamps, two beds, and two closets. The beds were no more than six feet by three feet, and you had to bring your own bedclothes, which usually meant a sleeping bag, a blanket and an old pillow from home. My closet was neatly organized, whereas Christina's was thrown in there and not organized to any degree. It was like looking at a trash site that hadn't been tended to for years.it even had the flies to go with it. It was, to say the least, disgusting. Good thing I'm not her mother.but her mother was there. Mrs. Voss had signed up to be a bandy mom, and for a few reasons I was both happy and mad at the fact.  
At seven sharp, we stood outside in parade formation, ready to march out onto the field. The drumline was already practicing half-cadence and full-cadence. As soon as I had gotten to my spot, exactly 12 steps away from the guard and 16 steps form the drumline, I started marking time. (Up- heel, down toe, down-heel, up-toe.don't ask. It's a band thing.) As soon as we got onto the field, we stretched and marched where we had left off of at pre-band camp. We re-marched song # 1: Overture/The Heat is On from the popular musical "Miss Saigon," and started setting # 2: Ceremony. At nine, when the sun had set into the western horizon, we were called down and released to go in. The sky was painted a magnificent blue, purple and pinkish yellow with white clouds thrown onto the canvas.  
I waited for Sonoma as she helped the guard pick up their equipment and flags; Christina did not want to go in without me. She made me so mad that night. I don't think she realizes how she really isn't that funny. Sonoma caught up with us and the three of us walked to the building. We had until ten to be inside and until eleven to be on the floor with 'lights out.' We just decided to hang out in our room until we had to go to sleep.  
The next morning we got up at six, showered and went down for breakfast at seven. The cafeteria supplied bacon and scrambled eggs (very good with ketchup!) fruit, juices, milk, cereals and bagels. That night had been restless for all, so everyone looked, "thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." (To take a line from my favorite movie, "Lord of the Rings" Fellowship of the Ring.") Not many people wanted to eat, but we were "required" to. Sonoma, being the frail thing that she is, ate nearly nothing until lunch after practice, and then she ate everything within sight. Like a whirlpool, to put it into perspective. Eight o'clock came and we went onto the field and marched for an hour, took a ten minute break, and marched the same again until noon, when we were released to go inside for lunch in the air conditioned building we were now happy for. The food wasn't the best, but it was the next best thing to ecstasy. One bowl of cereal is not meant to tide a person over all day. But I can't control my dietary habits. It's not natural! At one, we marched over to the other building for sectionals until five, when we went back for dinner. Then at six, we went back onto the field, marched however far we had gotten for three hours more, and went inside for the rest of the evening.  
Tuesday was unchanged, until that night when after practice, Sonoma had gotten upset at the guard and started crying, I really didn't understand what she was crying about because nobody else in the guard was crying, but I leant her my shoulder. That night, I stayed after nine to help Christina on her marching and maneuvering. After an hour of helping her, I realized she was hopeless and I probably had a better chance of teaching a coconut to march than her, and I probably had West Nile by now anyway, so we decided to go in. My feet were like daggers into themselves, and I didn't think I could be able to walk into the building or ever again.  
  
Chrissy and Christina were down stairs, what I believed to be in the lobby, but were actually outside on the veranda talking to guys, I later found out when Christina ran upstairs yelling that Chrissy was in trouble with some boys. Sonoma and I panicked and ran downstairs after her. As soon as we found Chrissy, she told us that she had just started talking to some guys from another school when Christina overreacted and ran. We had a looooong talk with Christina that night. I spent the rest of the night lying on my bed in the room until we had to go to sleep. I slept so good that night.  
On Wednesday morning, nothing suggested that it would be a different day. Everything started out just as normal. Breakfast and lunch, then came the ending of practice right after dinner. Both Christinas, Sonoma and I decided to go into campus town to look at the shops. We only had forty minutes and we thought that was going to be long enough. Boy! Were we wrong! When we got up town, we found out that it took us fifteen minutes to walk to where we were standing. We only had ten minutes in the shops and total, we only went into one store.  
As soon as we walked into the used CD store, I could taste the incense, and it soaked into my clothes. The sound of the shop filled my ears like water and was just as beautiful. Three rows full of CD's and a back room that was more like a tapestry covered antique shop. We had spent no more than three minutes inside when Christina started pestering us that we needed to be getting back. We still had few minutes before we needed to even start walking back. For the next few minutes, Christina and I played tennis with our feelings.  
"We need to get back."  
"We have a few minutes." And so on, back and forth, until I gave up and screamed at her that if she wanted to go so bad she could leave with Chrissy since she was bothering Sonoma and I also. With that, Sonoma and I were left in the shop.  
A few seconds later, we were at the cash register, and Sonoma decided that since I was 'such a good friend' (and I mean that in a good way!) she wanted to buy me something. At first I refused, but she insisted and I gave in. I decided on a blue sparkled hibiscus choker necklace that I had seen by the door. Sonoma bought the necklace along with the two CDs she had been looking at.  
After we left the shop, we saw Chrissy and Christina at a stoplight, waiting to cross the road. Chrissy ran on ahead as soon as the walk sign had turned on, but Christina refused to run. Sonoma and I ran across the street right by the small shop so we could be by Chrissy. Christina was on the other side of the highway, and crying her eyes out. She was so mature. She screamed that we were going to leave here, and I was tempted to. As soon as the walk sign had turned back on, we yelled at her to run, and she ran, though she stopped briefly at the margin, but kept on running. I shook my head, and thought that she was an idiot. From there on, we had to race at full speed the half-mile back to Thomas Hall. When we came panting inside the doors yelling that we were not late. We had only one minute and we made it.  
Thursday morning loomed bright and beautiful. Nothing out of the usual seemed to be scheming. The afternoon sun was burning our skin, and the sunburn that I had gotten yesterday was eating at me. I needed a tee shirt, and I would have to wait until lunch to get one. My shoulders ached as soon as we stepped onto the field and everytime we stopped for a break or to set a drill, a bandy mom would ask if I had sun block on. In those three hours, I probably had gotten more sun block that I had all week.  
That night just happened to be Senior Night, the evening that the top- most students were able to stay up all night to pull pranks on the lower classmen. At nine o'clock, everyone had showered, and was downstairs and ready for anything.  
Earlier that morning Mr. Holmes and the bandy moms and dads had ordered well over twenty pizzas and had pop to satisfy the band as the freshmen were given "awards." The "Ambush Award" was given to Christina, and the "What my tee-shirt Says best describes me Award" was given to Grant Garland who just happened to be wearing his Big Brother shirt that said "I blow . My Own . Trumpet 2003."  
After all the awards were given out, we got to watch the senior movie. A slideshow/video of the seniors from when they were little kids to now. And it just so happened that the drum major from last year had his picture taken with the current drum major, Christopher Weisenborn, and I just broke down. There was nothing I could do. The tears just flowed like a river from my eyes, but Sonoma understood when no one else did.  
As soon as the lights were turned back on, I got up and went upstairs, got dressed for bed and laid on my bed, crying out everything that was left in my system, and wrote a song. That was about all I could do. Sonoma stayed by my side until she had to go into her own room.  
The next morning, we found that we were trapped inside our room with duct tape. I pulled it off the wall and went into the bathroom. I found that the seniors had taken apart the scaffolding from the field and put it piece by piece into the different levels of bathrooms. Saran wrap covered and connected the scaffolding to the sinks, and no one thought to wrap the toilets or the showers, but I was sure they put Kool-Aid in the showerheads.  
Until nine o'clock, we repacked everything to go back home. I hated the last day. We had all week, and no one would remember a thing, maybe one or two people, but that's not enough. At nine, we went onto the field for the last time that week. We marched and played the whole show. As we came to the end of #4: This is the Hour, I got chills thinking, "we are going to rock this year."  
That afternoon came too quick, and we stepped back onto the buses. I took one last look at Thomas Hall. Nothing had changed, but everything was different. My guitar rested gently on my shoulder. My notebooks in my arms, and my pencils in my pocket. I realized that next year would be better and there was nothing to worry about. It felt like a part of my body was missing as I climbed on board.  
It took a week to pack. It took ten minutes to destroy it, and now we're going home. It seemed like just yesterday we were stepping off the bus, ready to work. Now, they wanted to go home, and I couldn't bring myself to leave.  
  
This one time at Band Camp. 


End file.
